In
the Christmas spirit, the time has come for the reality-based community to
reach out to the White House.

The
Bush warriors are so deluded, they're even faking their fakery.

This
week, the president presented a plan-like plan for "victory" in Iraq, which Scott McClellan rather
pompously called the unclassified version of their super secret master plan.
But there's no way to achieve victory from the plan even if there were a real
plan. If this is what they're telling themselves in the Sit Room, we're in
bigger trouble than we thought.

Talk
about your unknown unknowns, as Rummy would say.

The
National Strategy for Victory must have come from the same P.R. genius who gave
President Top Gun the "Mission Accomplished" banner about 48 hours
before the first counterinsurgency war of the 21st century broke out in Iraq.

It's
not a military strategy - classified or unclassified. It's political talking
points - and not even good ones. Are we really supposed to believe that
anybody, even the most deeply delusional Bush sycophant, believes the phrase
"Our strategy is working"?

The
president talked about three neatly definable groups of insurrectionists. But,
as Dexter Filkins reported in yesterday's New York Times, there are dozens,
perhaps as many as a hundred, groups fighting the US Army in Iraq, and they
have little, if anything, in common.

Mr.
Bush's presentation claimed that the US
was actually making progress in Iraq. But outside the Bush-Cheney-Rummy bubble, 10 more marines were
killed by a roadside bomb outside Fallujah, for a total of 2,125 US military deaths so far.

The
administration must realize it needs a real exit strategy, because it's
advertising for one. The US Agency for International Development is offering
more than $1 billion for anyone - anyone at all - who can come up with a plan
to pacify and rebuild 10 Iraqi cities seen as vital in the war.

Maybe
the White House should apply - Usaid's proffer says the "invitation is
open to any type of entity."

When
Bush officials weren't telling us fairy tales about the big, bad W.M.D. in Iraq, they were assuring us that the
unprovoked war would be a kindness for Iraq, giving it democracy. But not only are they failing to bring
democracy to Iraq, they are also degrading
democracy in America as they help Iranian-backed
mullahs install an Islamic republic with Saddamist torture chambers.

They've
tarnished American moral leadership with illegal detentions, torture, secret
CIA prisons in countries only recently liberated from the Soviet gulag, and
Soviet-style propaganda both at home and in Iraq.

Guess
the Bush administration didn't learn anything this fall when federal auditors
charged it with violating the law by buying favorable news coverage of
education polices. The administration got right back into the fake news
business, paying to plant propaganda in the Iraqi press. They outsourced this
disinformation campaign to something called the Lincoln Group - have they no
shame?

You
have to admire Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman. He kept a straight
face when he called the US "a leader when it comes to
promoting and advocating a free and independent media around the world."
He added, "We've made our views very clear when it comes to freedom of the
press."

Exceedingly
clear. The Bushies don't believe in it. They disdain the whole democratic
system of checks and balances.

At
the NavalAcademy, President Bush talked about how well the Iraqi security
forces were fighting. He claimed that 40 Iraqi battalions were taking the lead
in the fight against insurgents, and that in the battle of Tal Afar this year,
"the assault was primarily led by Iraqi security forces - 11 Iraqi
battalions backed by 5 coalition battalions providing support."

Anderson
Cooper of CNN swiftly produced Time's Baghdad bureau chief, Michael Ware, who was embedded with the US military during the entire Tal Afar battle.
"With the greatest respect to the president, that's completely
wrong," Mr. Ware said, adding: "I was with Iraqi units right there on
the front line as they were battling with al Qaeda. They were not
leading."

He
also told Mr. Cooper: "I have had a very senior officer here in Baghdad say to me that there's never
going to be a point where these guys will be able to stand up against the
insurgency on their own."

Mr.
Ware recalled that in a battle two weeks ago, he saw an Iraqi security officer
put down his weapon and curl up into a ball when he was under attack. "I
have seen that on - on many, many occasions," he said.